


come with me if you want to live

by faithtastic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexaweek 2021, Crack Treated Seriously, Day 5: Out of Bounds, Eventual Smut, F/F, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Single Parent Clarke Griffin, Terminator AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29801121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithtastic/pseuds/faithtastic
Summary: Clarke was accustomed to the universe dealing her a crappy hand, but it’s safe to say a naked stranger landing in her yard during a freak thunderstorm wasn’t on her bingo card.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 97
Kudos: 312





	come with me if you want to live

The Volvo rolls to a shuddering halt amid a series of painful clanking noises before the engine cuts out abruptly and the headlights die.

Clarke turns the key in the ignition, but nothing happens. Not even the radio comes on.

She tries again and again.

“No, no, no. _Fuck_!”

She slaps her open palm down on the steering wheel to vent her frustration, cursing again in the next breath as she shakes off the hot sting that lances through her hand.

In the dense silence that follows, she drops her forehead against the hard plastic wheel and exhales noisily.

For a while, she stays in that position; shoulders hunched and unmoving.

She listens to the faint whistle of the wind through the cracked window and the sound of her own breathing. Focuses on the steady expansion and contraction of her lungs until she feels a little calmer, a little more ready to face whatever crap the universe decides to throw at her next.

Heaving a sigh, she snatches up her purse and reaches for the door handle. As usual, it takes a bit of brute force to jimmy it open and that only adds to her foul mood.

It’s been… a day.

After pulling another double shift, her arches ache from being on her feet for twelve hours straight, and all she wants to do is strip out of her uniform and crawl into bed. But there’s a mountain of laundry piling up, and she didn’t have time to call the utility company about the overcharge on the account, and now she has to put this old shitheap into the shop for repairs.

She hasn't got the energy to deal with any of it.

Not today, when she’s already at the end of her tether and liable to snap.

At work, she lost count of the number of complaints from irate customers because the kitchen was short-staffed (Jasper had called in sick—again). Food came out lukewarm; orders got mixed up; it was chaos. And she bore the brunt of their anger with a tight smile while resisting the powerful urge to tip the refill coffee pot over their laps.

Naturally, the tips were pathetic. Same story all week. Which means she’ll have to pester Niylah for a couple of extra shifts if she’s going to make ends meet this month.

She continues to stew over it as she trudges up the path and lets herself into the house, met at the door by the sitter.

“Hey, Miss G.” Tris pops her gum then regards Clarke with undisguised pity. “No offence, but you look wiped.”

Clarke doesn’t bother to hold back her tired sigh.

“Yeah, Tris, I am.” She drops her purse and keys on the sideboard beside the pile of unopened mail, ignoring the envelope marked ‘final notice’. She shrugs out of her coat and dredges up a smile. “Thanks for staying late again.”

“No sweat.”

“Did Madi finish her homework?”

“She still had her nose buried in a history textbook when I checked, like, twenty minutes ago.”

“And you found the pizza money?”

Tris nods. “We saved you a couple of slices of pepperoni.”

It’s a sad indictment of Clarke’s life that leftover pizza is the pinnacle of her day. She digs through her bag to find her wallet and gives Tris a twenty dollar bill. Off Tris’s expectant look, Clarke purses her lips and grudgingly hands over another five bucks.

“Why does this feel like a shakedown?”

“It’s a tough economy,” Tris responds with a shrug, whip smart as ever, and it pulls a rueful snort from Clarke.

“Mhm. Well, say hi to your mom for me and text me once you’re home safe.”

“I will. See ya,” Tris tosses over her shoulder, one arm in her jean jacket and already halfway out the door.

Once she’s gone, Clarke plods through to the kitchen, and her heart warms to see the breakfast plates drying in the dish rack, that the counters have been wiped clean—two items crossed off her neverending to-do list and she could hug Tris for it.

Famished, she steals a bite of thin crust pizza straight from the fridge, unfazed that it’s cold and the toppings have congealed into a greasy, cheesy gloop. When she hasn’t had anything substantial to eat since she inhaled a slice of toast this morning while rushing out the house, this tastes like a bona fide gourmet meal.

Licking her fingers clean, she walks down the hallway to Madi’s room. The door is closed but the lamp is on. In a recent act of adolescent nonconformance, Madi took a notion to replace the regular bulb with one more suitably emo, and the gloomy blue light spills through the gaps.

Clarke taps her knuckles against the door.

“Madi?”

No answer.

She tries again.

Waits a moment, listening for sounds of movement within before she turns the handle and enters.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Madi greets the intrusion with a lethal glare and an overdramatic huff, dragging out the ‘o’ in “Mom” as she plucks out her earbuds. “Would it kill you to knock first?”

“I did. And don’t ‘mom’ me.”

The tinny sound of thrashing guitars and screeching vocals leaks from the speakers.

“Maybe if you didn’t listen to this stuff at full blast you would’ve heard me.”

Madi makes a face at her homework but Clarke lets it slide, too exhausted to get into another spat about the attitude Madi has adopted of late.

“Anyway, I just came in to say we’ve got car trouble so I can’t give you a ride tomorrow. You’ll have to catch the bus to school, kiddo.”

Madi rolls her eyes and mumbles, “With all the other losers and freaks. Great.”

That grabs Clarke’s attention.

Frowning, she approaches the bed and sits on the edge of the comforter. She studies Madi’s profile for a beat.

“Is everything okay at school?”

Madi remains silent, staring at her notebook, the page half-filled with row upon row of her slanted, spiky handwriting.

Clarke tries a different tact. “I know that starting over in an unfamiliar place hasn’t been easy. But you’ll soon settle in and make new friends, and things won’t seem so—”

“I don’t want _new_ friends. I miss my old ones.”

Clarke blows out a controlled breath, drawing on her last reserves of patience. “You can talk to me, you know? About anything. Whatever’s on your mind.”

Madi looks up at last, eyes gleaming in the murky blue light; full of scorn. “When? You’re never here.”

The accusation broadsides Clarke. Punches a hollow pit in her chest. The worst part is that she can’t really dispute it, can’t blame Madi for lashing out, but it wounds her all the same.

“I’m trying, Madi.”

Clarke’s throat constricts.

She swallows with difficulty.

Wills her voice not to betray the hurt she feels when she continues, “I’m doing my best. All I’m asking is for you to make an effort, too. Please.”

She holds Madi’s stare. There’s a flicker of guilt before it vanishes and Madi’s expression turns sullen once more.

“I want to go live with Abby.”

This again.

“She said—”

Clarke reels back an inch. “You _spoke_ to her?”

A shrug. “We talk on the phone sometimes.”

Clarke cycles rapidly through several emotions until she lands on anger. Not at Madi. At Mom. It isn’t just the fact they’ve been discussing alternative living arrangements behind her back that infuriates Clarke. (Although, seriously, what the fuck?) It’s the casual “Abby” that rankles, gets under her skin.

“Well, it’s not happening.”

Madi’s face contorts. “Why not?”

“Because your _grandmother_ doesn’t get to make decisions about your welfare. I do,” Clarke snaps, then immediately regrets it when Madi shrinks away from her slightly.

A strained silence ensues.

Clarke pinches the bridge of her nose and counts to three in her head. Is moderately calmer when she tells Madi firmly, “This isn’t open for discussion.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“I know. I know you aren’t,” Clarke says in a softer, more conciliatory tone. “But you and me, we’re a team, right? And I need you here with me.”

Pouting, Madi scribbles in the margin of her notebook, scoring a jagged black mark into the paper. She won’t meet Clarke’s eyes. But after a long, tense stretch of seconds, Madi’s shoulders slump and she lets out a grudging sigh.

“I guess.”

It feels like a small but significant victory.

Clarke reaches out and gives Madi’s knee a gentle shove.

“Hey, how about a movie night on Saturday? We haven’t done that for a while. We can make microwave popcorn and eat our combined body weight in candy.”

Madi appears to mull it over for a moment. An eyebrow goes up. “My choice?”

“Deal. Although, I reserve the right to veto anything above PG-13.”

The tut and accompanying eye roll she gets in reply brings a small smile to Clarke’s lips. She leans over to smack an extra loud kiss against Madi’s temple. Chuckles when Madi wipes it off in disgust, and Clarke ignores the twinge of sadness that accepting maternal affection is yet another thing her daughter has decided she’s grown out of.

Clarke rubs the outside of her thighs then stands.

“Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

Madi only pops the earbuds back in and flops onto her side; conversation over.

  


* * *

  


In the dead of night, Clarke bolts awake to the sound of a giant thunderclap, a flash of white light that floods the bedroom before plunging it into complete darkness again.

Groggy and disoriented, at first she isn’t sure if she dreamt it. If it was an overspill from the recurring nightmares she has, bleeding into reality and tricking her senses. She can’t pinpoint when they began, exactly, only that they’ve been happening with greater frequency since they left Baltimore. The details elude her; all she remembers are fragments. Shards of noise and fractured images that she can’t piece together to form a cohesive whole.

Gunfire and explosions. Searchlights slicing through the dark. Enormous armoured machines, towering over the rubble. Metal faces with glowing red eyes.

Destruction and chaos and war.

She always wakes up drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around her body, heart knocking hard and fast against her sternum, gripped by a paralysing sense of dread.

With her hand pressed flat against her chest, skin clammy to the touch, she feels that same nauseating panic now as her heart thuds wildly beneath her palm.

There’s a low rumble of thunder in the distance.

Outside, the rain is coming down in torrents. It drums noisily off the roof tiles and the window pane, and she tunes in to it. Uses that steady, metronomic beat to get her breathing under control.

It’s just a storm.

The evening forecast warned of a heavy downpour, black clouds rolling in from the north, something about potential flooding that Clarke only paid half a mind to as she waited tables.

It takes a minute for her nerves to settle.

Bleary-eyed, she squints at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Groans once she makes out the luminous green digits.

2:07am.

_Fuck_.

She has to be up in less than three hours.

Flopping onto her back, she scrubs a hand over her face.

Another ominous rumble sounds. Closer, somehow. Followed a fraction of a second later by an enormous boom that seems to rattle the walls, the very foundations of the house.

Clarke levers herself up on one elbow and waits, bracing for the next round.

In the lull, a car alarm blares from somewhere far down the street.

Three, four cracks of lightning strike in quick succession, rapid flashes strobing across her vision. Then silence, save for the rain battering off the ground.

She throws off the sheets and pads over to the window, pulling back the drapes. Hell, if she can’t sleep, she may as well enjoy the light show.

So the last thing she expects to see is a figure—a woman—kneeling on the overgrown grass in the yard. Head bent forward. Long, dark hair plastered to her face.

Naked, Clarke realises, to her sudden shock and alarm.

She can’t even begin to fathom how someone is out there in these conditions without a stitch of clothing on, but this poor woman _has_ to be in some kind of distress. If she stays out there much longer she’ll catch her death and Clarke doesn’t want that on her conscience.

Ignoring the sensible part of her brain that insists she should call 911 and let the emergency services deal with it, Clarke quickly pulls on a sweater, jeans and boots, and grabs a waterproof jacket from the hallway closet.

“Mom?”

Madi appears in her bedroom doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“Go back to bed.”

When Madi looks like she’s about to object, Clarke shoots a glare at her. “Just do as I say without arguing for once, will you?”

An offended glower on her face, Madi aboutturns and slams the bedroom door shut behind her, rattling it on its hinges.

“Madi—”

Clarke suppresses a sigh.

She turns on the porch light and peers outside. The woman hasn’t moved from the same spot in the yard. It’s like she’s impervious to the rain, doesn’t flinch or shiver as it drives down on her.

It’s bizarre, but Clarke swallows her unease. Puts up her hood and charges into the downpour.

“Hey! Hey, are you okay?” Clarke has to yell to be heard over the roar of the rain lashing down.

The woman’s head jerks up. She stares at Clarke through a curtain of wet hair, but says nothing.

Throwing caution to the wind, Clarke shrugs off her jacket and drapes it around the woman’s shoulders. Urges her up. “Come on, come inside. We’ll get you warm and dry.”

She doesn’t budge. Slight and small in build, Clarke wonders at the woman’s apparent strength, the easy resistance to Clarke’s attempts to haul her to her feet.

So she tries something else.

Holds out her hand.

“I just want to help, I promise. You can trust me.”

Bedraggled and soaked to the skin, she must present as an unlikely saviour, but the message seems to get through.

With a stiff nod, the woman takes her outstretched hand and allows Clarke to pull her up and into the house.

First things first, Clarke sits her on a chair in the kitchen and fetches a few large towels from the bathroom.

“Here.” Clarke passes them over, grimacing at the cold, wet denim sticking to her own legs. “I’m going to get changed, but I’ll be right back with something for you to wear.”

In the quiet of her bedroom, the weird drama of the situation catches up with Clarke all at once and that’s when common sense kicks in. There’s an uncommunicative, naked stranger in her home. In the kitchen. Where all the knives and other sharp objects are.

A shiver crawls up her spine.

Okay, okay.

She just needs to get this woman into a fit enough state so Clarke can call a cab and send her on her way.

It’s fine.

Peeling off her drenched clothes and tossing them into the laundry basket, Clarke rummages around in the closet for a shirt and sweatpants that might fit the stranger. She grabs underwear from the chest of drawers. Socks. An old pair of sneakers. Changes into another sweater and leggings herself, gathering the wet hair off her neck and up into a careless bun.

When she returns to the kitchen, her footsteps cautious, it’s to find the woman sitting perfectly still. Spine straight, chin up, eyes forward and staring into space. The folded towels are in her lap, unused. Water drips from her hair, running down her back and arms and onto the floor.

Clarke puts aside the clothes and her reservations to crouch beside the woman. She takes a towel and wraps it around thin shoulders, careful not to look below the neck. She already caught inadvertent glimpses of parts she shouldn’t have, but she’s trying to afford some dignity to this woman in her vulnerable state.

Clarke has a million questions.

But she resists, saying instead softly: “I’m Clarke. Can you tell me your name?”

In the resounding silence, she picks up another towel, and lifting her hand slowly, signalling her intent, she pushes the hair gently out of the woman’s face.

In doing so, an astonished breath catches in Clarke’s throat.

She’s beautiful.

All angular cheekbones and sculpted jawline; full, pouty lips; eyes so green Clarke dimly wonders if they’re colour contacts, because she’s never seen that shade in real life before. Almost luminous.

And those eyes are studying her with cool, keen intelligence now.

“Clarke Griffin.”

Her brows shoot up. “How—”

“Mother of Madison Abigail Griffin.”

She recoils, surprise and alarm warring with confusion, but her bewilderment swiftly turns to suspicion. Is this a trick, a scam?

“Who _are_ you?” she demands, hauling herself upright. Looming over this slip of a girl who regards her serenely, entirely unaffected by Clarke’s raised voice or the hands balled into fists at her sides.

Clarke doesn’t hear the door creak open, or the quiet footfalls moving down the hallway. It isn’t until the stranger looks beyond Clarke’s shoulder that she’s alerted to Madi’s presence.

“Mom?” She sounds small and scared in a way she hasn’t for years.

“Stay there,” Clarke replies, not taking her eyes off the woman in the chair while carefully backing away. “Look, I don’t have any cash or valuables stashed around the place so if that’s what you’re here for...”

“My name is Lexa. I was sent here to ensure your survival.”

“My _survival_? What the—”

Something wiggles in the back of Clarke’s brain, but she shakes it off. Shakes her head violently.

“I don’t know what you think is happening or whether you’re in some kind of trouble or—or whatever the case might be, but you need to go.”

“I can’t do that.” Lexa’s voice is calm and smooth, without inflection, the monotone at odds with the soft, girlish pitch. “My mission is to protect Madi Griffin and you, Clarke Griffin.”

It’s like she’s reading from a script.

Clarke can’t contain her incredulity, yet some small part of her is morbidly curious too.

“What are you talking about? Who gave you this mission?”

Lexa’s eyes shift to Madi again, half-shielded by Clarke’s body now.

“She did. Twenty-five years from now.”

Madi gasps.

That’s the final straw. It’s all too fucking much.

Whatever compassion Clarke felt towards this woman evaporates. Her only concern is making sure her family gets out of this unscathed, and to alert the authorities that a clearly disturbed person has in all likelihood escaped a nearby mental health facility.

Her eyes dart towards her phone on the counter, plugged in to the wall socket and charging. She has to collect herself, keep a level head; not do anything to further provoke whatever delusional episode this... _Lexa_ is having.

“Alright. Okay. Well, um, if you’re here to protect us,” Clarke begins, ever so slowly edging around the perimeter of the kitchen, keeping her body between Madi and Lexa. “Then you’re no use to us if you get sick. So how about I make you a hot drink and we can talk? And in the meantime,” she jerks her chin towards the pile of clothes on the table, “put those on so you don’t scar my kid for life.”

Lexa glances down at her own nudity, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

It’s the momentary distraction Clarke needs to make a lunge for her phone.

What she doesn’t account for is Lexa’s insanely fast reflexes. The woman launches out of the chair, a blur of movement in Clarke’s peripheral vision, and the next thing she knows she’s trapped between the hard counter and Lexa’s equally hard frame. Hips pushing into Clarke’s ass. Bare breasts against her back. An iron grip around her wrist, pinning her hand to the counter.

Clarke hates her body’s treacherous reaction, the sudden, unwanted flare of arousal that shoots up between her legs. How she has to choke back a mortifying whimper.

Because, Jesus, it’s been so long since someone touched her that even being manhandled by a probable deranged psycho killer revs her engine. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

For half a minute, she struggles uselessly against Lexa’s hold. Makes a futile attempt to pry herself free with her other hand.

“She warned me you were stubborn.”

Lexa’s nonchalance at least allows Clarke to tap back into her outrage, dousing her libido.

As does Madi’s anguished cry of, “Let her go, you’re hurting her. Please!”

Clarke seizes the opportunity to twist her torso, to ram her elbow into Lexa's side. Or she would, if Lexa didn’t anticipate the move first, catching her other wrist and slamming it down on the countertop.

“Don’t resist. You’ll only injure yourself,” Lexa says, so close to Clarke’s ear it causes an involuntary shiver. “There’s no time to explain, but we must leave this place now. Together.”

“Like hell we will. We’re not going anywhere with you,” Clarke grounds out through her teeth, still thrashing. “So just—”

“When Madi was an infant, you would lull her to sleep with Fleetwood Mac records.”

A jolt goes through Clarke’s chest.

She freezes. Every muscle in her body locking up as Lexa continues:

“Sometimes the only thing that quietened her was playing Rumours from start to finish on a loop.” She pauses. “It was your father’s favourite album too.”

Clarke’s breath leaves her in a shudder. She sags slightly against the body behind her.

“I don’t… How could you possibly know that?”

The hands wrapped around her wrists loosen a fraction, but Lexa doesn’t let go, doesn’t put any space between them. It’s the closest thing to an embrace Clarke has felt in months, a year, since the split with—

“Madi told me everything she knew about you before she sent me back.”

Knew.

Past tense.

The implication makes Clarke’s stomach drop, fear gnawing at her insides. She feels nauseous.

“What happens to us?” she whispers.

“You live, if I succeed.”

At last, Lexa withdraws.

Madi rushes straight into Clarke’s arms, barrelling into her side and, despite everything, it feels good to be needed again. Like the distance that’s grown between them has been erased, at least for a moment. Clarke holds her daughter tight while she watches Lexa over the top of Madi’s head, standing there in a daze as Lexa pulls on the borrowed clothes. Eyes drifting helplessly down the slope of Lexa’s back, taking in the strange pale latticework of razor-thin scarring, roaming down to the dimples at her waist, and over the curve of—

Clarke tears her gaze away.

“I’m okay, it’s okay,” she repeats in a quiet mantra, and Madi burrows closer, sniffling.

“Pack a bag,” Lexa instructs smoothly. “A change of clothes and whatever other essentials you need. You have five minutes.”

Clarke swallows down her unease.

“Why?” The dry, scratchy tightness in her throat makes it painful to force the word out, but when her eyes find Lexa again, she gulps for different reasons.

The pants stop mid-shin and Clarke’s oversized sweater hangs off one shoulder, the rainwater still dripping from the ends of her hair darkening the fabric. It makes her look deceptively soft and delicate. Not at all appealing, no.

“Why the hurry? Are we in immediate danger?” Clarke presses. “Give me _something_.”

It almost looks like Lexa sighs.

Her lips tighten then she lifts her chin.

“In 12 minutes 39 seconds, another time displacement field will open. Through it will come an advanced cybernetic organism whose sole directive is to terminate your daughter, the future leader of the human resistance against the artificial intelligence known as A.L.I.E. It will not stop until she is dead. It will show no mercy.”

Both Clarke and Madi gape at this bluntly matter-of-fact explanation.

Lexa’s eyes bore into Clarke’s own like lasers.

“I recommend you get ready to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on Tumblr [(@femininenachos)](https://femininenachos.tumblr.com/) for starting another WIP.


End file.
